58 THE GOSPEL AND THE PLOW 



Finally the Mission authorities said: ''Well, if you 

 think we ought to be teaching scientific, modem farm- 

 ing, as a missionary method, why do you not return to 

 America and study the subject and see if the folk in 

 America will back your faith with their money?" In 

 March, 1909, 1 left Allahabad and went to the Ohio State 

 University to study agriculture. For the next two 

 years, in addition to studying in the University, I made 

 on the average of thirty missionary addresses each 

 month, in churches, schools, colleges, theological semi- 

 naries, clubs. Sometimes the response was touching. 

 After the Laymen's Missionary meeting in the great 

 auditorium of Chicago, a scene shifter, all grimy and in 

 his shirt sleeves, pressed a soiled ten dollar bill in my 

 hand, saying, ''Take this and use it for me over there.'' 

 Some of the boys at one of the reformatories gave all 

 their savings. A little two dollar and a half gold piece 

 was given me by an aged lady in Staunton, Virginia, the 

 birthplace of President Wilson. It had been presented 

 to her by her lover who was killed in the Civil War, and 

 was all she had left to remind her of him. Another 

 woman from the Pacific Coast sent me a five dollar gold 

 piece, the first earnings of her son who had recently died 

 of tuberculosis. Some large gifts came also, but most 

 were in sums under ten dollars. 



There was also a response in the dedication of life. 

 I have shaken hands in India with five women mission- 

 aries who had attended my first mission study class on 

 India at the Lake Geneva Student Conference in 1909. 

 It was a great privilege to cooperate with the Student 

 Volunteer Movement in recruiting for the foreign field. 

 Many nights each month were spent on sleeping cars, 

 and by overnight journeys from Columbus I spoke in 



